A Consciousness Question

A

Adrenochrome

Registered Member
Hi everyone,

I'm a science fiction writer doing some research on a story that has a lot of elements outside of my expertise - wondering if anyone might be able to help me out on this.

Assuming humanity were to meet an alien species that appeared to act intelligently, is there any way to discern if that species had consciousness, as we know it?

As far as we know, the computer sitting on your desktop is not conscious. Would an uber-advanced version be conscious? How would we determine it one way or the other?
 
Adrenochrome said:
Hi everyone,

I'm a science fiction writer doing some research on a story that has a lot of elements outside of my expertise - wondering if anyone might be able to help me out on this.

Assuming humanity were to meet an alien species that appeared to act intelligently, is there any way to discern if that species had consciousness, as we know it?

As far as we know, the computer sitting on your desktop is not conscious. Would an uber-advanced version be conscious? How would we determine it one way or the other?
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all matter energy is sentient is what i am saying....this means -(see here and open up his 'consciousness' links www.deepspirit.com - that matterenergy is active intelligence
consciousness is non-locatable. it cannot be measured, and is how matter/energy FEELs....but is not 'inside' like bain is inside skull. cause it has no location!
 
Thanks Duendy, but I'm looking for something more grounded in conventional philosophy. The question ultimately reflects back on us, on how we perceive our own state of consciousness. My question is: what theories are there that address what consciousness is and how do we define and identify it?
 
Adrenochrome said:
Thanks Duendy, but I'm looking for something more grounded in conventional philosophy. The question ultimately reflects back on us, on how we perceive our own state of consciousness. My question is: what theories are there that address what consciousness is and how do we define and identify it?
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hmmm bit confused....why you'd want conventional ideas about this.
as i see it conventional theories about consciousness have ranged from Cartesian dualism where animals were believed to be 'automata'---ie they like your book would wonder if animals were conscious like humans were. and from this horrendous 'conundrum' tortured them , believing their cries of pain were a machine-like response....!.....prior to this you had so-called religioists wondering if WOME had 'souls'/consciousness

then now in this materialistic pradigm we have indoctrinated the idea that consciousness is a product of complex matter. thus implying all 'not'that' is random and dead
 
Adrenochrome,

If I were you, I'd simply stick to the old Star Trek utility definition: any organized system that behaves in such a way that it exhibits self-awareness and self-preservation. Basically, you want to limit consciousness to entities that make use of a concept of self.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your story.
 
I managed to hook up with a philosopher/neuroscientist yesterday who answered most of my questions, though more are bound to arise.

What I'm looking at is called a "philosophical zombie." Horrible name, but it's a philosophical idea of a being that appears in every way human, but does not have consciousness. It's a principle for arguments, but it's essentially impossible in practice because we have no way of distinguishing whether a person (other than ourselves) has consciousness.

My story is about humanity meeting what amounts to a race of philosophical zombies (though not human in form). The idea of the story is to force humanity to look at itself in a new light. We revere intelligence, and we revere ourselves for possessing intelligence - we consider ourselves of more value than a much-less-intelligent creature such as a dog. At the same time, we revere our consciousness, valuing ourselves above machines, though such machines may be able to "think" much faster than we can.

So what happens when we meet a species that appears to have intelligence but no consciousness? Do we treat them as a dog, as a computer, or as our equals? What if this species is pushing us out of our evolutionary niche, threatening us with extinction? Sure, we'd resist, but on a moral level, are we really superior because we're conscious? Of what use is that consciousness in evolutionary terms, if a non-conscious, intelligent creature is clearly out-competing us? Are we just another scrabbling lifeform, or is there really anything special about humanity?
 
arthur c clarke wrote a story (2001:space odyssey) about an alien race that had evolved (or perhaps they turned themselves into) pure radiant energy. they did not have material bodies, but were just conscious energy. i thought this idea was really intriguing, not sure if it relates to what you were thinking about though. i think the only way to describe consciousness is that it is an entity that allows feedback into the system, in other words, it is self aware.
 
Adrenochrome said:
So what happens when we meet a species that appears to have intelligence but no consciousness? Do we treat them as a dog, as a computer, or as our equals? What if this species is pushing us out of our evolutionary niche, threatening us with extinction? Sure, we'd resist, but on a moral level, are we really superior because we're conscious? Of what use is that consciousness in evolutionary terms, if a non-conscious, intelligent creature is clearly out-competing us? Are we just another scrabbling lifeform, or is there really anything special about humanity?
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so you're thinking of more of a hive-mind type; like ants who do their job, but they are not able to ask why they do it, or who they are. i think, in the situation you are describing, that humans (right or wrong) would be forced (by their own nature) to attempt to destroy this zombie race. but it would depend greatly on the details as to whether we would survive. a race that does not consciously question its purpose or existence, that does not even know what a self is would not even know they were harming us. if you get a chance you should read ender's game and especially its sequel, speaker for the dead, if you haven't already. they touch on the same topic you are wondering about, though slightly different.
 
Thanks Roy. Yes, I've read both Card books and Clarke's. I wanted a species that was very different from us, but hadn't been used before (at least, not extensively). The creature-as-energy idea has been done to death, as has the hive-mind. This species is one that followed a different kind of evolution - the same rules of variation and selection - but based on physics rather than biochemistry (I know in a way they are the same thing, but different kinds of selection pressures could make vast differences). I'll keep the other details close to the vest for now.

The net effect is that we don't know how to relate to this species. We know they're pushing us aside, but they are more of a natural disaster than an enemy. We're not so much fighting them as trying to stay alive in a hurricane. And the hurricane happens to be smarter than we are.
 
You'll probably have to limit yourself to a "race" of bio-mechanical heuristic robots/androids that eliminated their inventors.
 
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